Next year’s Sundance Film Festival will reflect an on-going trend in the movie world, for big name actors to seek out challenging and rewarding roles in independent films. The competition line-up for Sundance 2013 has been announced and Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck, Daniel Radcliffe, Jessica Biel and Kristen Bell are all amongst the big names headlining next year’s festival, which is considered a highlight of the international film festival calendar.

John Cooper, the director of Sundance, told The Hollywood Reporter “It’s a reflection of the landscape… We notice that there's a very, very vital community of actors taking roles in independent films - well-known actors in particular.” There are 27 films in competition at the 2013 festival, which will be screening 113 feature-length movies in total. These were whittled down from 12, 146 submissions – an increase of 429 from last year.

Taking a look at those big names in competition, then; Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara both appear in Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, a story about two outlaws, situated in the hills of Texas. Daniel Radcliffe, meanwhile, continues his attempt to break free of the clutches of Harry Potter, by playing Allen Ginsberg in Kill Your Darlings, which brings together the great beat poets of the 1940s. Elizabeth Olsen and Jennifer Jason Leigh also star in this movie, centered on David Kammerer’s murder by Lucien Carr. Kristen Bell stars in The Lifeguard and Jessica Biel leads the cast in Emanuel and the Truth about Fishes, a dramatic thriller directed and written by Francesca Gregorini.